Is attachment at the root of global violence?

Like most of us, when I heard about violence committed at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, I was deeply shaken. Many months later I am still very very saddened. It is my own personal belief that God brings only good into the world and and it is we as humans through free will and error thinking that bring what society calls “evil”. I also believe that through every terrible act, God is pouring something good our way if we are just willing to look for it and embrace it.

If you have been watching main stream commercial media and social media, no doubt you have seen plenty of video and plenty of pictures worthy of night-mares. Yes, they are hard to look at, yes they are shocking and yes some are downright disgusting to look at. Hollywood, television, internet streaming, video games and even mainstream authors are all quite adept at bringing fictional violence into our living rooms and bedrooms 24/7 and on demand. All this has had quite the effect of desensitizing people of developed nations to the horrors of real violence. It has become all too easy to turn off our caring nature when something real and tragic happens – even in our own towns. A while back, a very graphic photo was making the rounds on Facebook. Three dedicated individuals desperately pushing a wheelchair occupied by a man who had both lower legs ripped of flesh from an I.E.D. The image of ragged. splintered exposed bone and missing extremities shook me. Instinctively I went into prayer and prayed for this man, his family and those who would be affected by the image as it unexpectedly unfolded before them when they opened their Facebook news feeds.

A little bit of text at the lower left of the image read “like = prayer” and the image had accumulated thousands of likes and 204 comments. The supportive outreach in the comments were often heart-felt and they came from around the globe in dozens of languages. There was a smattering with a direct tone of how America deserves this for their atrocities and plenty of “how dare you post this!” What struck home for me were the two pointed reminders of how this stuff happens around the world every day and every hour, and how it appears that we in America don’t care until it happens to “us”. The missing comments I longed to see were those that reached out and said: “This is real – this is what happens when humanity commits violence against humanity – this is NOT Hollywood makeup – this is genuine suffering and this needs to come to an end.”

Our mainstream media is practiced and plished at not showing reality in such graphic detail – to protect our “sensibilities.” Indeed what would happen to society if we were to see what the reality of violence looked like? Perhaps we would grasp a deeper understanding for what others go through daily and become compassionate. Perhaps we might wake up and demand of our leaders to stop the aggressions. Perhaps we might get the clarity to see that there is no “us over here and them over there” – there is only the universal us. We the people of the United Earth.

Cities, states, countries – they are all imaginary lines drawn on maps or in the sand that we commit violent acts to defend or change. Much of politics are opinions. If someone doesn’t agree with the opinion and conversations won’t change their mind, then let’s bully them or beat them up. And violence in the name of religion is just plain twisted. At the root of all great religions is compassion. If someone worships differently than we do, why do we have aggression instead of compassion? Why are we so eager to look for what is wrong with their beliefs instead of what might be right? Instead we are willing to kill to make our opinion the dominant opinion. And yes, what belief system you agree with is a matter of personal opinion, and until that belief system can be “proven” it will remain as such.

Maybe the answer to all of this is to release our harmful attachments. When we are so completely fixated on the attachments of: being right, having the most power, land, money, _____(fill in the blank)____, that we are driven to willingly harm one another, we are operating at a deeply dysfunctional level. And all because of our refusal to release.

Many people have said that the human condition is at it’s greatest level of evolution thus far, and yet we still throw such violent tantrums. Unfortunately, adult tantrums can reach catastrophic levels of foot stomping, and instead of hurt feelings, people die.

Divine Spirit, today I affirm that I release all unhealthy attachments in my life. I am freed from their limiting grip and am empowered by that freedom to choose greater outcomes for myself and the world. When confronted with the attachments in others, I honor them where they stand, yet stand myself as an illuminated example of living an attachment-free powerful life. ~ Amen